Stuff posted by Graham

L.A. band The Soft Pack’s rad new video features an increasingly absurd, awesome and insanely messy cafeteria food fight with the kids from Kick-Ass: Chloe Moretz, Clark Duke and Christopher Mintz-Plasse. Directed by Mean’s Kashy Khaledi. This is just the latest installment of Mean’s ongoing series of cinematic mash ups– more to come!

What a midnight delight! UCLA’s Hammer Museum is hosting a “Dream-In” on May 1st:

Dreamers are invited to camp out in the Hammer courtyard and collect any dreams that occur during their stay. The evening will feature experimental dreaming workshops, concerts, and bedtime stories, followed by a waking concert in the morning, all facilitated by a dreamy batch of local artist-psychonauts. The following day museum patrons may encounter dream reenactments, workshops, and napping music during their visit.

The event is in honor of seminal psychoanalyst Carl Jung’s Red Book, currently on exhibition at the Hammer. Tucked away from the world in the deep recess of the Jungian archives until 2009, the Red Book is a long sought-after personal journal illustrated and written by the famed doctor between 1914 and 1930, detailing imaginary encounters with biblical prophets and slithering serpents. Here are a couple of the luscious psychedelic illustrations from the book:

Tim Macpherson’s glimmering glossy photos of childhood imagination are a potent reminder that even against the aesthetically oppressive environment of a beige suburban carpet, you can do some serious dreaming.

Long-lost astronauts, homicidal bloggers, baseball legends and wayward skaters all find a home in John Pham’s captivating comic series Sublife (published by the always on-point Fantagraphics Books). With only two issues on the street, Sublife has already established an achingly familiar universe in all of its disparate ongoing narratives. Deftly juggling the melancholy of Adrian Tomine’s Optic Nerve with some Cormac McCarthy-inspired apocalyptic action and plenty of skillfully subdued deadpan humor, Pham proves himself a master of multifarious emotions and artist stylings.

Giant Robot 2 is hosting a solo show of Pham’s gorgeously vibrant gouache paintings this weekend, entitled Living Space. Go check it out, and do yourself the favor of picking up a copy of Sublife.

German photographer Daniel Augschöll is a young master of the scenic. Whether he’s capturing the weightless beauty of light dabbled on a grove of trees or a serenely quiet car frosted over with morning dew, his work is intrinsically linked to the landscape. Naturally, nature seems to be the visual theme underlying the online magazine he edits with Anya Jasbar, Ahorn. The newly released 5th issue of this carefully curated portfolio of photographers from across the globe is brimming with beautiful work ruminating on the intersection of human shelter and the organic.

Have you ever wondered what life would be like if you just abandoned everything? What would happen if you ran away from home without warning? Veteran manga artist Hideo Azuma’s illustrated memoir Disappearance Diary answers that question in fascinating detail. Several times in his life, Azuma unexpectedly ditched his career and family without so much as a plan. Disappearance Diary outlines the rugged realities and comical encounters that emerged out of his uncertain, venturesome lifestyle, from shameful dumpster dives to the strange characters Azuma encounters as a manual laborer, and the moral uncertainty of stealing food from neighboring hobo encampments.

How do we know what the world is like? As mainstream media talking heads attempt to explain things in abstract, flatly spoken proclamations, the value of rogue photojournalists and artists like Livia Corona rises exponentially. For instance, consider the following fact: Mexico is building an average of 2,500 units of low-income public housing every day. As a statistic, sure, that sounds kind of impressive, but it’d likely slip from your mind without a second thought if it weren’t for Corona’s illuminating images. For the past few years, she’s been documenting the human impact of these otherworldly suburban tracts in a series called Two Million Homes for Mexico, and the results are breathtaking.

Daredevil Thor Drake, the man responsible for some of the craziest mini-bike stunts in Jackass Number Two, is living the dream. What kid doesn’t want to grow up to do crazy tricks, weld together trampolines and bounce down the street? Thanks Lance, for allowing us to vicariously live like Thor– if only for a few minutes.

Swedish photographer Johan Willner’s images of boyhood strike a strong emotional chord. His work deftly emulates the social uncertainty and ambiguous violence that often come coupled with the inevitably awkward stage of pre-adolescence. It’s that time in your life when you just want to turn invisible, but no matter what you do it feels like everyone’s looking at you. These could be still frames from a surreal film about evolving familial relationships and uncomfortable father-son moments. “What did you do?” the adults in Willner’s Boy Stories seem to be asking with their accusatory glances. “I don’t know, what did I do?” thinks the viewer, along with the boy who honestly can’t figure it out.

It’s here, just in time for the weekend! We first brought you word of Spike’s new movie last August, when it was still just a “secret robot short film.” After the Sundance premiere in January, Nieves released a zine, Opening Ceremony designed flipbooks and a window display, and now finally Absolut has posted I’m Here in its entirety online. Go check out the robot romance if you’re 21 or older, and stay tuned for even more radness surrounding this lovely short!